Hi Guys,
I just recieved my second wonderful McGizmo Aleph 3 today, and took some time tonight to take some "beamshots" outside. The McGizmo Alephs are both Aleph-3s, one in red-orange at 1000 mA, and one in cyan at 917 mA, both Luxeon IIIs with 2x123 bodies. (Thank you, Isaac Hayes, for parting with your cyan Lux III!) Don, your lights are superb!
The red-orange should put out something like 140 lumens; the cyan about half of that. To the eyes though, they are both about equally bright. The actual die in the r/o is bigger, so it doesn't focus as tightly as the cyan, but still a nice beam.
Through my pocket spectroscope, the cyan shows a much broader spectrum than the r/o, from red all the way into UV. The r/o probably goes into the IR end, but not enough to screw with my camera's sensor too much. The r/o has a very narrow spectrum by comparison. To get to the point, there is pretty good color rendition with the cyan, plus a little flourescence going on. The pics below show some arrows lit by my Surefire L2 and both Alephs.
Sorry for the poor focus, but you get the idea. The cyan is actually greener than that, but I have trouble capturing colored light with my camera. All lights were on their high settings and used the same exposure in manual mode. Bear in mind that the Alephs are spots while the L2 is a flood.
Next I went for distance shots. I aimed at the chicken house about 80 yards away. The L2 picture is for real -- if you crank the brightness you can make out the building. Not much of a thrower compared to the Alephs (or anything else for that matter.) All are the same exposure settings in manual mode.
The colors are a little closer with the chicken house, but you still have to keep in mind that the camera does not have human eyes. Notice the differences in "response" on the roof and foreground grass between r/o and cyan.
The cyan is a really neat color. Before the moon came up tonight I could see features in my field over 300 yards away. Using binoculars I could see grass and branches at that distance. The only real drawback is that there is a lot of backscatter from haze that visibly detracts from maximum contrast. The r/o does not have the backscatter problem to any appreciable extent. But then it is generally more difficult to see by for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.
I tested the r/o in smoke the other night, but results were not clear-cut. There is obviously less scattering, but actual resolution through smoke -- compared to a stock MagLite 4-D -- was only marginally better. It is difficult to compare two lights that are so fundamentally different.
So there you go -- a grown man having entirely too much fun with colored lights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Scott
PS: Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting
I just recieved my second wonderful McGizmo Aleph 3 today, and took some time tonight to take some "beamshots" outside. The McGizmo Alephs are both Aleph-3s, one in red-orange at 1000 mA, and one in cyan at 917 mA, both Luxeon IIIs with 2x123 bodies. (Thank you, Isaac Hayes, for parting with your cyan Lux III!) Don, your lights are superb!
The red-orange should put out something like 140 lumens; the cyan about half of that. To the eyes though, they are both about equally bright. The actual die in the r/o is bigger, so it doesn't focus as tightly as the cyan, but still a nice beam.
Through my pocket spectroscope, the cyan shows a much broader spectrum than the r/o, from red all the way into UV. The r/o probably goes into the IR end, but not enough to screw with my camera's sensor too much. The r/o has a very narrow spectrum by comparison. To get to the point, there is pretty good color rendition with the cyan, plus a little flourescence going on. The pics below show some arrows lit by my Surefire L2 and both Alephs.
Sorry for the poor focus, but you get the idea. The cyan is actually greener than that, but I have trouble capturing colored light with my camera. All lights were on their high settings and used the same exposure in manual mode. Bear in mind that the Alephs are spots while the L2 is a flood.
Next I went for distance shots. I aimed at the chicken house about 80 yards away. The L2 picture is for real -- if you crank the brightness you can make out the building. Not much of a thrower compared to the Alephs (or anything else for that matter.) All are the same exposure settings in manual mode.
The colors are a little closer with the chicken house, but you still have to keep in mind that the camera does not have human eyes. Notice the differences in "response" on the roof and foreground grass between r/o and cyan.
The cyan is a really neat color. Before the moon came up tonight I could see features in my field over 300 yards away. Using binoculars I could see grass and branches at that distance. The only real drawback is that there is a lot of backscatter from haze that visibly detracts from maximum contrast. The r/o does not have the backscatter problem to any appreciable extent. But then it is generally more difficult to see by for reasons that I can't quite put my finger on.
I tested the r/o in smoke the other night, but results were not clear-cut. There is obviously less scattering, but actual resolution through smoke -- compared to a stock MagLite 4-D -- was only marginally better. It is difficult to compare two lights that are so fundamentally different.
So there you go -- a grown man having entirely too much fun with colored lights /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Scott
PS: Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting
